Archive for the ‘Random’ Category
The Elephant In The Office Is Out of the Bag, Or Whatever.
by Treadmarkz
I just started a new job this week. Today was my fifth day of service at the company. Six if you include the interview. Today was the first time there was a single word spoken in reference to my wheelchair. I am greatly enthused by this. The only reason it even came up today was because we went on a little lunch-hour field trip across town and I carpooled with my supervisor. She needed to know how best to disassemble the above-mentioned chair. I don’t remember it even coming up yesterday when she offered to let me ride in her car.
Some of you people may not realize how seriously big this is. To celebrate, before we got in the car to go back to our office, when she made a sarcastic crack about having to fit my wheelchair in her car, I broke the ice open completely and shot back “I can’t help it I’m a cripple!” I don’t know why, but that is my idea of fun.
Nope, I Am Not a Veteran
by Treadmarkz
Anybody else who is in a wheelchair have this experience? You’re rolling down the sidewalk not doing anything exceptional and someone sticks their hand out their car window and gives you the thumbs-up, or some similar gesture? I have, on several occasions. And because I am never doing anything exceptional, as I said, I have come to this conclusion:
They think I am a veteran.
I am not.
But I appreciate the sentiment.
When I receive this kind of “gratitude” because I have no time to verify the reason behind the gesture or to set them straight on the matter, I mentally send the gesture back out to all that have lost their lives or – more appropriately to the situation – lost their physical ability to the Hell of war.
The Ramp At My Apartment’s Office Building is Being Put In Today
by Treadmarkz
I’ve written on this subject before and posted my own version of “Mission Accomplished” by writing about my victory, blah blah blah. So I am just posting to say that my building’s managers are finally today putting in the ramp at the office that I have talked about throughout the last few years. They are really doing it. I can hear the construction workers. I will be able to use it tomorrow. Let this be a lesson to you. Whining always leads to victory! lol No, that is not the lesson. There isn’t one.
Why Aren’t There More Wanna-Be Paraplegics?
by Treadmarkz
A couple of my most popular pieces on this blog are one about a psychological anomaly which causes one to want to be an amputee, and another piece with tips for guys in wheelchairs to follow to keep their abdominal muscles in shape.
Observing this trend, my mind can’t help but start wandering. Being in a wheelchair, this is my average (uneventful) day: dragging my body around from bed to wheelchair to car, to wheelchair at work, back to car after work, to wheelchair, to sofa, to wheelchair to shower, to wheelchair, to bed. This is a lot of movement which involves tremendous stress on the upper body, which those of you with use of your legs may never have considered. All of this transferring throughout the day goes a long way toward keeping the abdominal muscles reasonably fit. My point is this:
If I were one of the amputee wanna-be people alluded to above, if I were to dispose of my legs, and the extra weight I carry around because of them, I think my abdominal muscles would be in a rough condition after a while. So these “useless” legs have a hidden purpose, all told. I joke about wanting to cut them off sometimes, but a guy in a wheelchair would never really want to be an amputee. My paralyzed legs provide a natural balance for me. Given that the United States is one of the “fattest” countries in the world, I would think there would be more overweight men who would want to be a paraplegic in order to gain the benefits of the built in work out of dragging the legs around.
This is just how my odd mind works. Take it or leave it.
My Local Subway Restaurant Seems to Have Gone Out of Their Way To Be The Exact Opposite of Wheelchair Accessible
by Treadmarkz
I went to lunch today with my mom, at Subway. I noticed a funny thing there. Every table in the joint was fairly accessible to me and my wheelchair except the one that was marked with a blue and white handicap parking symbol. That table has chairs on each side which can be pulled out but in order to pull a wheelchair in you’d need to wedge yourself in between the table and a divider half-wall. The only way you can get in is at an angle. And that isn’t even the funny part. On the end of the table, there is a little handicap sign on the table. You think okay good, open end for me to pull into. Just below that sign there is a solid metal bar from the table to the floor, blocking entrance of a foot plate. This is the complete antithesis of handicap accessible.
I have called and registered a comment. They are well aware of the problem and are going to speak with the home office. Stay tuned. In the meantime, I am perfectly capable of making my vegetarian subs at home.
Wow! Joan Rivers Actually Knows A Bit About Spina Bifida! Hmm…
by Treadmarkz
Joan Rivers was the first female to (guest) host the Tonight Show. She has been very influential in comedy for the last couple of generations. I give her a lot of credit for that. She could have been the female equivalent of George Carlin. But I don’t currently see her as such, when I see her on every “red carpet event” my wife watches. I find her hard to listen to and I don’t particularly find her humor all that thoughtful, as I do Carlin’s.
So why do I respect her at the moment? I just watched a bit of her fashion-themed talk show with my aforementioned wife, and she was critiquing a dress that some celebrity had recently been seen in public wearing which had a wide-open back. Joan Rivers commented that “You don’t have a wide-open back like that unless you have spina bifida!”
I was impressed because, quite simply, hardly anyone I ever talk to seems to have any idea what the symptoms of spina bifida are. Though this comment was not necessarily funny, she did accurately describe my condition, at birth. She proved to me that she’d done her homework while writing her jokes.
So I cannot believe I am saying this, but well played, Joan Rivers. Well played. I salute you. Until the next thing I hear you say. 
Wheelchair Innovation From the Perspective of a Walkie
by Treadmarkz
For my 200th post on this blog I want to tell you about my brother. I talked about him long ago on this blog, how when we were kids he, though not disabled himself, taught me how to pop wheelies on my chair, and he rigged my wheelchair with systematically placed life preservers, and installed a ramp at the end of the dock whereby he would go flying off the end of the dock into the Mississippi River. Yes…in my wheelchair. I never did it of course.
Ever the innovator in wheelchair technology I just wanted to note that in the course of a 15 minute conversation this weekend, he pointed out no fewer than four improvements he could envision being made to my Quickie. Not sure how many of them he felt confident in his own ability to install. At least one. I will not discuss what they are until we see where this goes. Never know. Quickie may want to put us to work. Suffice to say they would make recreation in a wheelchair much more mobile and convenient in various ways.
How Pain is Like a Bad Axle
by Treadmarkz
In my studies of the Sanskrit language I have found several words that, when translated into English, are made up of some literal profundities. One example struck me as particularly pertinent to this blog, so I’d like to share it with you. The word for pain in Sanskrit, duhkha, literally means “bad axle” or “bad axle shaft”.
When you look at pain in this way, pain becomes a very different experience, especially for a guy in a wheelchair. If I had to deal with a bad axle on my wheelchair, I would have two very distinct choices. A) I could take the necessary actions to get the axle repaired, or B) I could live my life with my back side dragging on the ground.
And so, when considered from the Sanskrit point of view, pain is a problem which logically leads one to its own solution.
Why I Am Offended By Leap Year (A Satire)
by Treadmarkz
Every four years the Earth has an extra day inserted into the calendar so that it has time to catch up and make it around the sun before December 31. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like some kind of special treatment. Sounds like some of the special education programs I went through so I had more time to sit and think so I could get my math homework done.
You think Mars gets an extra day on its 687 day calendar every four years just so it can catch up? No. I bet it stays on its course, pays attention, and gets the task finished on time. It knows that its orbit is different from that of other planets, and yet it follows through.
This kind of lax attitude is exactly why the beings on other planets have the technology to visit, study and examine us and we’ve barely got a space program.
Nay! I say down with Leap Year. And while we’re at it I’m glad Pluto was stripped of its title as a planet. It was not qualified. Our solar system should never hire planets just to fill a quota to meet the laws on fair hiring practices.
